Ryan Ray
Sharply rebuking what she called “political games” on the part of the U.S. House’s Republican leadership, U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham today explained her No vote on today’s Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which contained an amendment reversing course on President Obama’s recent actions on immigration.
“The people of North Florida are tired of political games in Washington,” Graham said in a statement. “I’m ready to work with Democrats and Republicans to fix our broken immigration system, and there’s only one way to do that — with comprehensive immigration reform. This amendment was intentionally designed to poison the well and kill this bill. It represents politics at its worst.”
Specifically, the bill included an undoing of the president’s recent deferral of deportation in cases that would affect immigrant brought over as young children, as well as Obama’s action in November to suspend the threat of deportation for millions of further law-abiding undocumented residents.
The House passed the bill 236-191 along essentially partisan lines.
Speaker John Boehner explained during floor debate that “This executive overreach is an affront to the rule of law and to the Constitution itself.” He did not explain why this course of action was preferable to challenging the measures in court.
“The government’s first and foremost job is to protect the American people. I believe funding national security is too important to jeopardize with partisan politics,” Graham said. “Republicans and Democrats came together to write a bipartisan funding bill for Homeland Security. I’m ready to support that bill when it comes to the floor without this political amendment.”
Graham has taken plenty of heat for her own seemingly politically motivated votes in recent days, particularly from the left.
